


If We Hadn't Died

by laughinginthebreeze



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Angst, Character Bashing, Community: tvd_rareships, Dark Stefan, Drabble, Drama, Drunkenness, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Falling In Love, Family, Humor, Insanity, Love, Love Confessions, Love Triangles, Love/Hate, Minor Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore, Minor Violence, Original Character(s), Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Other, Polyandry, Possible Character Death, Romance, Threesome - F/M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3160685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughinginthebreeze/pseuds/laughinginthebreeze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of one shots on alternative and different kilas/steferine scenes.<br/>"No, my shadow self, you didn't come out alive. You came out just like me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unexpected Thread of Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I've decided to do a series of one-shots on alternate Kilas scenes from season 5 after I re-watched the episodes, and wandered where it would have gone if something went differently. I'm just trying something out, and I don't know how many chapters there will be yet. Please review!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own tvd or the characters, they belong to Julie Plec and L.J Smith.

Silas hopped up the stairs to the Boarding House, and quietly made his way into Damon's bedroom. He laughed silently at how easy it was to infiltrate Damon's mind, and walked over to the open door of Damon's au suite door, hoping that Katherine would come with him without a fight.

It was a pity she was the one who had been cured. He had heard such intriging stories of her, the doppelgänger, hunted by Klaus, quite the manipulative, selfish bitch, but interesting to him all the same. Because no-one became like that without a tragic backstory, one that would haunt them forever.

He would know.

He rapped on the side of the door and stepped into view. Katherine looked up from shaving her arm in alarm, then instantly relaxed when she saw him, thinking he was Stefan, putting away her razor and smirking at him. He himself was quite shocked by her appearance. The immortality elixir had worked, she looked exactly like Amara, right down to the almond shape and size of her doe eyes, apart from her curly hair piled on top of her head.

He quickly covered his astonishment by leaning on the side of the door, crossing his arms and smirking right back.

"Why are you in my brother's bathtub?" he asked, still smiling.

Katherine leaned further back into her bubbly bath. "Why aren't you?"

"I will say that's a tempting offer." he approached her, and sat on the edge of the bath next to her. He liked her, she knew how to have a good time. He almost regretted having to kill her.

"Mmm, he flirts. I like Elena-less Stefan." Katherine grinned widely, but it didn't hide the flickering suspicion in her eyes. She knew something was wrong. He had to step up his game.

"You know, human looks better on you than I would've guessed, Katherine." he leaned down so he was mere inches from her face. "I think you just accidentally gave me a compliment." Katherine said, the disbelief evident in her voice.

"No, I mean it. You, sitting here all weak and vulnerable. It works." Silas reached out and cradled her cheek, hoping it would do the trick. Her eyes flickered from his face to his hand, before she sat up slowly and inched towards his face, gripping the bath tub with one hand. He reached down to grab her neck and haul her out of the tub when he just... froze. He looked into her eyes, and really, really saw her. He could see her, the person she was so long ago, and the person she had become, each layer of her personality, the reasons behind her evolution, and who she really was. Not the stories about her, the fake, selfish persona, but a fragile girl who craved love, but pushed it away time and time again because of the people she had lost and the ever-present fear and trauma of it happening again. Every single one of her emotions flitting in front of his eyes, exposing her whole life, the way she saw and experianced it, in a single moment.

And it was beautiful.

Somehow he couldn't do it. Not now, at least. But Amara was worth anything, no matter the cost so he could do it. For her. But he didn't have to enjoy it.

So instead of kidnapping her, he found himself kissing her, and the world seemed to melt away. He convinced himself it was Amara, but it was _better_  when concentrating on Katherine. He leaned forward, practically in the tub as they continued kissing passionately, as he enjoyed every second of the heat that filled him everytime his lips touched hers. She pulled back to breathe, and started undoing the buttons to his shirt as he kicked off his shoes. Within moments, they were both the tub, getting soaked, and the water was splashing everywhere. They were suddenly interrupted by Damon storming up the stairs, closely followed by Jeremy, and barged into his room. He had found out Silas' true identity from Jeremy, and was on the way to try to kill him unsuccessfully. Silas jumped off Katherine as she giggled at the look on Damon's face. He clearly hadn't been expecting this.

"Hello, brother." Silas smirked, causing Katherine to snigger again.

"Wha-my-my bathtub! You two are disgusting! Go to your own tub! You've ruined my bath time for me!" Damon sputtered out. He had instantly dismissed the idea of Silas escaping, because he thought only Stefan would sleep with Katherine for revenge against him and Elena, since Silas had a girlfriend. He and Jeremy looked revolted, and Jeremy just turned and walked out of the door, now also looking shocked.

"What, you mean now?" asked Silas innocently, placing one hand on each side of the tub and preparing to get up. Katherine had sunk further down into the bubbles, smiling mischeviously, her feet prodding his chest.

"No! No," Damon threw his hands out and closed his eyes in disgust. "Just, get out before I kill you." he grumbled, marching out the room, muttering angrily.

"Well," Katherine leaned towards him and pecked him on the lips. "That was amusing wasn't it?"

He laughed. It definetly had been. "Come on, I really wouldn't underestimate Damon on his threats." Silas got out of the tub, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hips, before tossing a robe to Katherine, who was just getting out too. He took her hand, and went up to Stefan's room, ignoring Damon's evil stare and kissed her again, removing her robe in one swift motion. He silently wondered if he could ever do it; kill a unique soul such as her.

Either way, now was not the time to be gaining a conscience.

But somehow, he'd done it anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

"Sorry to sound like a broken record, but, I like to the identity of my kidnappers." Katherine snapped as Nadia dragged her out of the bushes. "Who are you? And, what do you want?"

Nadia stopped and turned to her. "Ask me again, and I'll sew your mouth shut." She snapped ferosiously. They both turned around to find Silas leaning against Nadia's car, smirking in obvious amusement at them.

Katherine suddenly felt exhausted; another enemy after her-again. What was it about her?

Whatever it was he wanted, she wouldn't go down without a fight, she was sure of that.

"Silas, of course it's you." she spat at him, shifting away as far as possible away from them, without breaking her arm from Nadia's tight grip. Silas seemed undettered by her venomous tone, and seemed to be ignoring her, turning his attention instead to Nadia.

"What are you doing here?" Nadia asked, sounding confused.

"GPS Tracker!" Silas announced proudly, picking it up and showing them, clearly pleased with himself. "It's even better than a locator spell," He flipped the GPS over in his hand, then tossed it carelessly to the ground, standing up and stepping towards them.

"Thank you, for working so quickly, Nadia." Silas added sarcastically, now only about a few feet away from them.

"I'm not ready to hand her over yet." Nadia replied, pulling Katherine behind her.

"Ah, that's right. Your fascinating unfinished business that I don't care about." Silas sighed in a bored tone.

"Get out of my head." Nadia said and stepped towards him, so they were inches apart.

"What are you two talking about?" Katherine asked, feeling stupid, and mildly annoyed that she was left out of the loop.

Silas ignored her again, and said to Nadia, "Let go of her arm." Katherine could feel the power radiating off him, pushing at Nadia as she complied, begrudgingly. She instinctively knew trying to run wouldn't work. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end, and she felt truly afraid. Klaus hadn't been this bad. She could outrun, outwit and outsmart him anyday, but if Silas could compel anyone and everyone as she had been told, then she had no-one left to trust, apart from maybe Jeremy, who would gladly watch her die.

"Now I want you to pull out your gun. And aim it at your heart." he instructed. Katherine's eyes flickered to the vampire as she very reluctantly and slowly, removed the gun from it's holster and brought it up to her chest. She wore a steely mask, no fear, no emotion was written on her face.

And Katherine kind of respected her for that. It reminded her of herself. She briefly wondered why he didn't order Nadia to take off her sunlight protection instead of knocking herself out, but then rationalised that maybe he didn't have time, or he needed her for something else.

"Good," he remarked, his face also emotionless. Katherine would have thought he would have looked smug over the power he had over them, but he seemed... sad. He clearly hadn't wanted this life to go this way, he couldn't have seen it coming. Alone in a cave for two millenia really didn't help him either, it had made him bitter and hateful, as it would anyone.

So Katherine pitied him, aswell as feared him, but was she going to go down with him? Become a sacrifical lamb for him to be with his love, whilst she ended up alone in a supernatural purgatory?

Hell, no.

"Now, pull, the trigger." his voice broke her out of her thoughts. He glanced at Katherine in confusion as he spoke to Nadia. Katherine blinked at him, then remembered with a fearful jolt that he could read people's minds, and had probably heard everything she had just thought about him.

The explosion from the gun made Katherine jump back in surprise, although she knew it would happen. It made her ears ring and she winced in pity for Nadia, who had crumpled to the ground unconcious, the gun spinning away from her. A large, shockingly vivid, red stain was rapidly spreading across the front of her shirt, ruining it.

"Get in the car." Silas told her, grabbing her hand, opening the passenger door next to the driver's seat and throwing her in, despite her heavy resistance, kicking and clawing at him. He got in next to her, turned to her, and said,

"Don't try to escape, don't tell anyone where you are or get help and do exactly what I tell you." Now Katherine could feel his power on _her_ , pressing on her brain, forcing her to obey. It was a lot more powerful than vampire compulsion, all right. She had never felt that way under normal compulsion. She huffed in annoyance, and leaned away from him and towards the window. She thought she saw him smirk at her out of the corner of her eye, before starting up the car and driving down the road.

"Why do you want me anyway?" she asked, after a few moments of thick, tense silence, curiousity overriding fear.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out." Silas smiled smugly.

Katherine sighed in annoyance. Why couldn't the Big Bads just explain themselves for a change? It was getting rather boring.

"I hate you." she turned away from him, conveying as much disgust into her voice as possible. She didn't expect him to be fazed by her comment, but he looked rather stung and hurt. He blinked several times and gritted his teeth, quickly smoothing out the emotions on his face before Katherine could be completely sure of their existence in the first place.

She wondered if it was because she sounded like Amara, or it was because of her herself.

Or maybe, he was just like other people, who were insulted by comments like that. She felt a twinge of pity for him. He had been human once before, long ago. They all had been. And, in a way, it shaped them, who they were in the long run, their feelings, their experiances in particular.

She thought if that was the case, no wonder he was who he was today.


	3. Beautiful Insanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5x03: He drowned. It hurt. And people he never expected to be there for him ended up being his anchor to life. To sanity.

Water slices through his lungs in merciless torrents. Bursting his blood vessels and losing him in a murky depth of despair every time a vital organ falls apart, exploding through his body. It turns the stale, foul-tasting water around him into a churning mass of red and he falls into a deep, inky sleep that almost seems peaceful, as his internal combustions heal.

And then he wakes up. It's become a pattern now, his resurrection like one vicious circuit to hell.

Sometimes Stefan thinks even hell would be better than this.

A never ending drowning, the never ending drowning, lost in the drowning. The water that delivers a crushing and painful but temporary death that drags and tosses him around like a limp rag doll. All he can do is choke and pound emptily on the safe door, hoping someone out there would stop what they were doing, think about him, put the pieces together and come rushing to his aid.

But no-one comes.

No-one stops for a moment to think about him.

No-one puts the pieces together. Yet somehow he keeps on hoping because hope is the only thing he has left. That the two people most important to him would have-must have noticed that he was gone. That they would stop going on dates, kissing, other... things, that burned his mind every time he thought about them so much that he is surprised the red, ice-cold water wouldn't start bubbling and boiling with rage, to help him.

His _brother_  and the _love of his life_. Together. The worst thing that had ever happened to him. He starts to realise he must have overlooked so many things, been fooled from the beginning into thinking she would be his forever. He feels like laughing because of course this would happen to him. In fact, he probably deserved it. He just hates the thought of another person touching her the way he had once been allowed to. The brother part seems like the universe's way of playing a cruel trick on him.

Of course this was what his life had drained away to be.

Of _course_ Damon got her. His true love. He lets a little anger trickle in despite being happy for him. Because it wasn't fair that Damon got the girl, whilst all he got was a tidal wave of water slammed into his body every single minute of every single agonising day for the past-what, three months, now? A safe, that was meant for another man, dooming him for what feels like eternity and all Stefan wishes for is it to stop. To end all his suffering, to take it all away because his entire existence is not worth the pain he has to endure, the battles he fights, but loses a little more every day. Because he's lost his love and he's losing his mind, dying, ravenous and all alone, but most of powerless.

Powerless against the man who wears his face. Well, it was Silas' face, if one was being tedious, the face that Stefan wore. Everything he ever has been and ever will be all boils down to the person he's really been all along.

A copy.

A shadow of the most powerful supernatural being who ever lived. He briefly feels a flash of pride quickly swallowed by a hateful vengeance to destroy Silas if he ever escapes. But vampires don't have a time limit and forever is a long time.

He wants to shout and scream at the world for standing by whilst this happened to him. For letting him suffer in a midst of terror and ferocious hunger.A ferocious hunger that was driving him out of control and into a desperate fever. The ripper was waiting, just hidden under the surface, the floods of water doing nothing for his insatiable thirst for blood. He drifts from his bubble of torture, the water washing him away on a tide of pain.

**~X~**

Jolting. Thumping. Faint noises and shakes cause Stefan to snap out of his slumber to an immense shaking, that makes his teeth chatter. He has no idea how long he's been 'dead', but he's not feeling exactly grateful for whatever had yanked him out of his snooze away from his personal hell hole. The jolting increases, and then the safe is turned upright, sluggishly dragged upwards through the sediment that had probably been deposited onto it, and pulled up through the water. Stefan's heart hammers in excitement, his hopes soaring.

Finally!

Freedom. Damon and Elena had found him! His whole body itches with the urge to escape, to feed until he could no longer breathe, or remember his own name. He can tell when the safe breaks the surface when the water starts trickling slowly out of it, and sunlight pierces the tiny sliver in the crease of the safe door, dazzling, and frightening at the same time. The safe slams to the ground, jarring his weakened bones, but Stefan couldn't care less.

He was free.

He coughs and spits all the remaining water out of his lungs, eager to escape the feel of it and wincing as it stings his mouth with a bitter, salty taste, and drags in his first breath in three months. He marvels at life, how something so simple as breathing for a vampire could be missed so easily and so much. He never realised how much he had missed air until now. Gathering his strength, he prepares to pound the door again, but someone beats him to it. With a loud clunking sound, the lock is slowly turned, opening with every twist. And Stefan grows more agitated, yet excited every second it takes to open.

Then it does.

And the blinding sunlight burns his skin, and he starts roasting like a chicken. Silas must have stolen his daylight ring. But he doesn't mind. What he had just gone through was so much worse. He doesn't mind death anymore.

But someone else does, and someone else grabs his left hand and slides the cool, familiar ring of protection onto his middle finger. He starts to slowly heal over, slower than he'd like to admit, but feeling cool and protected once more, and he squints up at his saviour gratefully as his eyesight adjusts, and who he sees comes as a great surprise, overpowering the crushing disappointment he feels, because it wasn't who it _should_  have been.

"Having fun?" his doppelganger smirks.

**~X~**

Stefan rips into a woman's neck, guzzling the addictive, warm liquid greedily until the blood runs in steady streams down her once clean, white shirt and down his stained and water-logged ruined one. It drizzles down her neck in lazy hot torrents, and he relishes in the feel of it as it smears all over his hands as he messily grasps at her back and neck. He doesn't even remember how he got here, but he doesn't care. All he sees humans as right now are walking snacks. Surprisingly, he's only killed two people in the few hours he started living again. He wonders if it's the liquidy substance of the delicious hot red stuff he craves, or that he finally has maintained some control.

Probably the former.

He lets the woman go, gasping for air and blood trickling down his chin. Showing some restraint, he heals her with his blood, and compels her away. He turns to Silas, who is sitting on the couch opposite him, looking both amused and disgusted. An odd look on his own face he had never seen before. He had been helping Stefan, getting him away if it got too messy, keeping an eye on him. He even took him to his apartment, to keep his snacks at a minimum. And Stefan can't help but wonder why the man who essentially killed him, changed his mind and came back to save him.

"Why come back?" he asks the question that had been nagging at him beneath his raging thirst. "Why not leave me there? No-one would have suspected you and you could have stolen my life. So why?"

Silas smirks at him. "Because you need someone who won't betray you," A personal jab at his life. "And I need a wingman."

"Aah, of course. All the Big Bads want me. Is it my looks, or...?" Stefan carelessly licks the remaining blood off his fingers, causing Silas to laugh.

"No, I think we like the beauty of destroying such a fragile thing."

"I'm not so fragile anymore," Stefan replies tersely. "I made it out of my life alive."

Silas just smiles sadly, a flicker of how old he really was shooting briefly in his eyes.

"No my shadow self, you didn't come out alive. You came out just like me."

**~X~**

He stands by the Boarding House, a still statue. He can see figures flitting in front of the bottom half. Jeremy and Damon. Most likely bickering, or ignoring each other. Funny. Damon never stopped hating Elena's brother long enough to pick up the phone and check up on his own one. He feels a throb of disgust and hatred pound at his heart. Damon won't get off easy this time ruining his life. He picks up a large stone the size of his fist, hefting it easily in his hand. Without thinking twice, he thrusts all his power into one arm and flings the stone right at the window, where he can clearly see the shape of Damon's head. The window completely shatters inwards, spraying Jeremy, but mainly Damon with razor-sharp shards of smashed glass right in the face.

Not to mention the stone that had smacked into his forehead just before, adding to the pain and humiliation.

Stefan smiles, silently enjoying his destruction. It wasn't nearly enough, not by a long shot, but the sight of Damon's face slick with blood, glass jutting out of his face at all angles, making him look like a walking disaster is really quite humourous. Three months ago, it wouldn't have been. Three months ago, Stefan Salvatore was sane. And it had been nice, for a little while. So boring though.

But insanity, however, is a beautiful thing.

**~X~**

He still has nightmares. Pounding through his head, chasing the dreams away. The water, filling every crack, every crevice in his body. The pain. The explosions roaring through his gut ten times a day. But somehow it all makes it easier. It gives him something to hold onto, a reminder of what he got when he was too forgiving, too compassionate, too selfless. Whenever he showed mercy, it was another stake piercing his heart, his daylight ring slipping off his finger.

Mercy was a means to an end.

The nightmares make him stronger. They stop him from caving in to the person he was, they keep him afraid of getting too close again.

Sometimes he hears Silas talking in his sleep. He sounds scared. He wonders what Silas could possibly be afraid of, but he's too afraid himself to ask. He wonders why he isn't killing himself to be with his true love, like before. Silas hasn't really told him anything, why he hurt Stefan to begin with, his life two thousand years ago. The real story.

Stefan thinks he doesn't want to make his life a reality. To accept that his intentions didn't go the way he wanted them to and that the result is loneliness. Because that is essentially what happened to him, too. Which is why he can't find himself hating Silas. He feels sorry for him. All those years, wasted, all alone. It can drive a person mad.

He also thinks that maybe he wouldn't be alone if Damon hadn't killed Lexi. If Damon hadn't done everything it took to punish him for a life he never wanted, but is now enjoying all the same. He thinks about Lexi, whether she knew about his predicament, whether she watched over him as he lay drowning. What she would be thinking right now if she saw the person he had become.

He cares, just not enough to dwell on it.

Instead, he stares into empty space, thoughts whirling on no particular thing. Grasping and snatching on whispers of memories long gone past, flying by without any focus.

"Your thoughts are churning." Silas calls over from the living room.

"You have to stop doing that. I don't know where you're from, but in this century, people don't like their privacy disturbed." Stefan says, sucking on a blood bag.

"Hmm. Interesting," Silas stands up, with a magazine, staring at the cover with extreme distaste and hate. "These people don't seem to mind though." he points at the subheadings of celebrities being exploited.

"They're famous humans who like the attention." Stefan explains, rolling his eyes.

"Crazy people," Silas tosses the magazine into the bin. "What is the world coming to?"

"Traitors at every turn, thieves snatching at your life, and people who aren't what they seem." Stefan says in a dull monotone. The sting of Damon and Elena is still fresh on his mind, leaving him bitter, eager to escape and never look back. Silas peers at him, not trying to hide that he is reading Stefan's mind. "Why don't you then?"

Stefan sighs, trying to gather his thoughts to figure out what Silas means. "Leave? I dunno. I just... don't."

"You should. This town is a drag." Silas wrinkles his nose. Stefan smiles and when he does, he thinks of Lexi.

"I hear Portland is beautiful this time of year."

**~X~**

The Scooby gang finally track them down in New Jersey after two months. But too little, too late.

They should have rescued him months ago.

Stefan is downing another shot and Silas is slicing open the bartender's wrist with his pen knife when he hears the snarky voice that brings back so many painful memories, a bubbling anger that urges him to lash out at something.

"Hello brother."

Stefan grits his teeth, then slowly turns around to face the face that has ruined him for 145 years. In a leather jacket, jeans and smug smirk, Damon stands before him, Elena, Caroline, Jeremy and Bonnie (wasn't she supposed to be dead?) gathered behind him, all looking like a sombre support group.

"Damon." he nods, before pouring and tossing back his shot to give him an excuse to come up with an insulting comment. "Took you long enough. So, how did you find me?"

"When we looked you up, we heard rumours of a unnaturally powerful immortal wearing your face ripping his way through South America. Literally. And Bonnie told us about some wacky spell reversal on him when she died, and that you had gone missing. It wasn't hard to figure out." Damon says, sneering.

"Well, it seemed to be very difficult for you to prise your lips off my ex-girlfriend and realise I was missing." Stefan smirks coldly.

"Stefan," Elena says softly, and Stefan jerks back at the sound of her voice, rejecting the warm memories she stirs up in him. Because if it all didn't mean enough for her to stay, then it wouldn't mean enough for him either.

"Stop this, please. I know you're upset-"

"You think I'm upset about losing you to my brother? That you carelessly flung me aside? Trust me, I'm over it." Stefan calmly takes another shot as Elena flinches slightly at his words and his 'friends' take a sharp intake of breath in shock.

"So you thought you'd run away with him?" Damon jerks his chin at Silas in obvious distaste.

"Well, I know what the term 'family' means." Silas innocently sips blood out of his red paper cup. Damon scowls at him, possibly thinking about attacking him, before deciding against it, and instead settles for an angry clenched jaw.

"I mean," he continues dryly, "Did you know Stefan drowned for three months in a safe? I did." he smirks slyly. Damon shoots him an evil glare, before looking at Stefan, shocked.

"What's he talking about?"

"When I went missing, Silas actually put me in the safe he was supposed to be in," Stefan says casually with a shrug.

"Wait, what?" Caroline looks blank with horror and disbelief, and Stefan glares at her so coldly she shrinks back slightly. He'd like to forgive Caroline, the least harmless, and sweetest of the group, but she had been his friend, she should have realised. All of them should have.

"Do I have to repeat myself? I thought you had vampire hearing." he smirks coolly, causing Silas to snort into his cup, shoulders shaking in unmistakable laughter. Caroline opens her mouth to reply, but instead changes her mind and walks out of the bar, looking injured. Elena now looks a little angry, and Bonnie rushes out after Caroline, throwing Stefan a hateful glare on the way out. Stefan buries the guilt boiling up in his stomach, still wearing the arrogant smirk, he knows will annoy Damon.

"Not cool, man." Jeremy warns, surprise evident in his tone.

"Maybe not, but I think I deserve to think a little selfishly. You know, in case you haven't noticed, the last time I was kind and compassionate, my brother stole my girlfriend. So, what does that say about me, eh?" Stefan mutters softly, still smiling serenely.

"Stefan, he's been killing people! Why are you doing this?!" Elena exclaims angrily, breathing heavily.

"Because I don't get hurt anymore, I know where I stand. And no matter what with you, from the beginning, I had no clue. I didn't know if you loved me and it killed me inside. I was lost." Stefan snaps back, veins coiling under his eyes dangerously. Elena steps away, lost for words, and Stefan takes in a deep breath of relief.

"Dude, he dumped you in a quarry! Come on, Stefan." Damon is almost pleading now, clearly stressing over a losing battle. Stefan just finds it amusing.

"Yes, he outsmarted me, and trapped me like I was going to trap him. And then he rescued me. Can any of you say that?" Stefan shoots back, calm and collected, though it slices through Damon and Elena just as badly as if he had screamed at them.

"You're going to choose some psycho psychic over us? That's not you Stefan." Jeremy says evenly, arms folded. Stefan's chest tightens at that. The person he had been with them wasn't the person he really was.

"I'm not that person anymore. I never was."

"Hell to that." Damon snaps, grabbing Stefan's arm. Silas stands up suddenly, his hand shooting out to grab Damon's wrist in a quick sudden movement, twisting it round sharply until he lets go of Stefan with a loud snap and a cry of shock and pain.

"Didn't you hear him? He's not going. Take the hint." Silas snarls before releasing Damon, who staggered backwards. Elena catches him, angry and upset and Jeremy looks stunned, a still figure.

"Walk away Damon," Stefan says quietly, his shot glass cracking beneath his tightly clenched hand.

"Walk away and don't come back."

**~X~**

It's been six months. Six months of a life he never knew he wanted. Strip clubs, dancing, feeding, become a permanent part of life. Not to mention having to teach Silas how to use a mobile phone, something he'll never forget. Life has been so much better without Mystic Falls in it. It poisoned him to the core, and now it can't kill him anymore. Six months of a hell free life, even an almost normal life. He even had gotten a job as a mechanic, normal things he should have done a long time ago. He has time and time again found it ironic how Silas turned out to be more of a brother to him, despite their first meeting, than Damon, who he knew for two hundred years and gave him countless reasons to give up, ever was.

But that was life for you. Throwing you at every turn.

He thought he had experienced the unexpected. Would know when the universe would throw him off track.

What he didn't expect was to get home with Silas after work one night was a girl with curly waist-length hair, leather trousers, shiny heels, bringing back memories both good and bad, sitting on his armchair, legs elegantly crossed, red nails tapping the arms of the chair. She doesn't look so bad, for someone adjusting to a beating heart, the type of survival that she wasn't accustomed to. The human aspect of life. She smirks when she sees them come in, and he instantly feels at home. In a way the old Stefan never would have felt around his sire. Maybe it's the human quality, her chance at a fresh start that he has hope for.

"Hello boys." Katherine says, a thousand meanings behind her words.

And the familiarity of her voice fits into a hole in his soul he never knew existed.

Now he's home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Caroline and Silas, an unlikely duo, team up to bring their favourite couple together...

"So, Caroline." Silas said, sliding into the booth opposite her by the window, a wide smile on his face due to the phone call he had just received. "Mission Staferine is under way?"

"Mission _Steferine_. Jeez, if you're going to work with me, at least know what you're shipping." Caroline rolled her eyes as she dumped her notebook onto the table.

"I trust you brought yours?"

"My what?" Silas asked, clueless.

"Your notebook!" Caroline exclaimed in exasperation. She clapped her hand to her forehead.

"It's like teaching a kindergarten how to write." She muttered to herself, before meticulously scanning the room for her favourite-to-be couple, unsuccessful, since they were on opposite sides of the room to each other, and she started scribbling down notes furiously. She glanced at the empty seat next to Silas.

"Wait, where's Amara?"

Silas looked rather haughty. "Oh, she decided that our mission to push our doppelgängers together was a total waste of time, was unfair and unkind, and has refused to participate."

"Oh." Caroline was rather put out. She knew that planning this with a suicidal maniac who was obsessed with destiny was going to be difficult, so she had been relying on Amara to keep Silas calm, and to stop him from getting out of control, but now that seemed unlikely.

"Well, anyway, Stefan needs to get over Elena, and Katherine needs to get over Elijah's sorry ass, and, Stefan asked me to set him up with someone. They're perfect for each other!"

"Yeah, so how exactly are we going to do this? Stefan and Katherine detest each other, if we set them up on dates, it will drive them further apart." Silas munched on his salad that Matt had just brought over.

Caroline frowned, chewing thoughtfully on her pen. "Well, Katherine asked me if I knew anyone, and I was going to set her up with Enzo purely for the sake of it, but then if they hit it off, both being murderous psychopaths, then that would drive Katherine and Stefan further apart, instead of together, sooo..."

"We could set them up on bad dates!" Silas exclaimed. Then he frowned. "Hang on, how do we do that? Do we just go up to someone who looks like a down-beat loner and ask them if they no longer wanna be single?"

Caroline shot him a dirty look. "No! We ask people we work with, go to college with, etc. if they're interested in a date." Then she paused. "Wait, that won't work out for us if they actually get on, you know, the whole, impossible couples thrive and all that? So..."

"Ooh! Ooh! We could set them up, in the same time and place, but not actually get them dates!" Silas grinned excitedly as Caroline wrote it down.

"Not bad, you actually came up with a good idea." She smirked, watching Silas' face darken in indignation.

"I have good ideas! The immortality spell? That got Stefan and Katherine here, which brings us to a similar purpose of bringing them together today!"

"Yeah, what about deciding to destroy the Other Side to be with Amara, but she was still alive?"

"I didn't know that at the time! And besides, who wants to be stuck in a place _Qetsiyah_  created?"

"What about killing Bonnie's dad? That was really rude, you know."

"In my defense, if Katherine hadn't gone AWOL, then I wouldn't have had to test my compulsion on those people. Besides, I drained her for the cure and didn't kill her, so she didn't need to run! So really, that one's on her." Silas argued, smiling innocently.

Caroline sighed irritably. He always managed to confuse and annoy her. "There's just no arguing with you. Anyway, here's what we'll do; I'll tell Stefan he has a blind date here tomorrow at four, and you'll tell Katherine the same thing. Got it?"

"Yeah," Silas nodded. "But what happens if this goes wrong? Everyone likes you, they'll just suspect me of coming up with this mad plan and influencing you, and I don't suppose you've realised, but Stefan isn't exactly partial to me these days, and I'm not exactly immune to several methods of torture or any number of mortal ways to die. All he really needs to do is grab me and shove me in that safe, and then get that Liv witch to-"

"Okay, got it! Well, you needn't worry, my young padder one, because, number one," Caroline held up a finger. "Nobody here aside from Amara, oddly enough Katherine, and occasionally me, really likes you, so there's really no difference, number two, this plan will be so fool-proof and dastardly clever that it won't be found out, and number three, I have a fail-safe." She paused for effect. "New Orleans. It's where Klaus is, and he fancies me, mutually respects Stefan, and detests Katherine, so all you have to do is pretend to be Stefan if this plan fails."

"That's a big _if_." Silas said, glancing behind her. "Because although I ship them, it's going to take a lot to get those two together." He pointed, and Caroline turned around to see Stefan now trying to play pool, and Katherine, who had been sitting at the table next to him before he had arrived, waiting for Caroline, who had unceremoniously ditched her, both exchanging rather harsh words along the lines of 'brother-breaker', and 'evil Klaus minion.'

 _Honestly_ , Caroline thought, rolling her eyes. Those two were so immature. Fortunetly, she believed in the doppelgänger epic love, and when Caroline believed in something, she would push until she got it. Besides, those two were really just hiding their feelings for each other, Caroline was sure of it.

"Silas." She stated in her best snobby I-know-better-than-you-in-this-day-and-age-voice. "Those two are just hiding their passion for each other, you'll see, I know my chemistry, and those two have buckets of it." She watched as Katherine stood up, and pushed past an annoyed Stefan, dramatically flinging the door open, heading towards his car parked just outside, looking suspiciously vengeful. Yes, their hateful glares also contained lust and passion, she was sure of it.

Silas frowned at her. "What the hell does chemistry have to do with love? That's like, atoms, and blowing up things and stuff, isn't it?"

"Oh, for God's sake, as in, _feelings_  for each other chemistry, dumbass." Caroline rolled her eyes impatiently.

"Well, they should come up with another word for it. And if it's anything like actual chemistry, where you mess around with potassium too much, then you're screwed." Silas said plaintively.

Caroline exhaled in frustration at his impatience. "I know what I'm doing," She added, standing up and heading towards the door after Katherine. "The twenty-first century love life is my domain, and I'm telling you, they're silently begging for someone to push them together. Really, it's easier than it-HOLY _CRAP_! KATHERINE! LET GO OF THAT TYRE CHANGER! You _do not_  want to be paying for Stefan's car insurance in your poorly acquired human state!"

"Yeah," Silas snorted into his coffee as Stefan, looking livid, hurried outside to his dented windshield, hurling obscenities at his to-be soulmate, Caroline already outside, tugging the tyre changer from an unruly Katherine.

"Really, easier than it looks."

**«X»**

Katherine didn't know why she'd agreed to this _at all_. She'd never been one for blind dates, but she'd kinda thought that maybe she could stop thinking about Elijah, and her confusing feelings for Stefan and start focusing on someone that might actually gave a damn.

But, really? In the _Grill_ , of all places. Ugh. No. Definitely not going to go well.

And Stefan was here. Fantastic. Honestly, if she'd just been allowed to smash his car, then maybe he wouldn't be here. Maybe she wouldn't have loved him as much as she had, maybe she wouldn't hate that he hated her so much.

Pushing away those other thoughts, she plonked herself down at her reserved table, which was unfortunately reserved right next to Stefan's, impatiently looking at her watch. Great. Fifteen minutes of hanging around the door, no sign of mystery man, and already she was beginning to think that this night wasn't going to end well. Another few awkward minutes passed, before Stefan finally decided to open his mouth and speak to her.

"Hey, you seen my date?" Stefan asked rigidly.

 _Okay_ , Katherine nodded to herself. Five monosyllabic words that didn't involve shouting. That was progress, right?

"No, you seen mine?"

Stefan shrugged. "Didn't know you had a date."

"Oh, just that, Silas told me you knew who my date was." Katherine said, shifting in her seat and looking around.

"Hmm." Stefan nodded. "That's, uh, weird. Caroline told me that _you_  knew who my date was." He frowned, looking confused and Katherine had no doubt that those two were up to something, she just couldn't figure out what. Her phone pinged, and she scrambled for it, eager for an excuse to get away from the awkward conversation.

"Oh, I have a text from Silas! Maybe he can explain himself." Katherine muttered, clicking the inbox.

_RemMbe,r tryt o hae aciv val conVsat ion withima nd kEe p his carrinact itty !_

Katherine squinted at the screen. Useless. Why on earth was he speaking in gibberish? Did he even know how to use a phone? How was she supposed to read _that_?

Her phone pinged again, and she irritably scrolled back through her messages. Silas would be dead by the end of the night, she was very sure of that.

_Oops, I meanremember, tryto have acivilconversation wit hhim and keephis car intactthis timekitty! Howdo y ou use thisstuupid autocorrect ?_

Katherine sighed, clenching her phone angrily. That wasn't much better either, just another annoying nickname added to the growing list. She turned her phone off, deciding Silas' help was pretty non-existent, and looked around. Was he here? Maybe he could explain himself before she died of boredom.

And besides, how could he _not_ know how to use autocorrect?

**«X»**

"Has she replied yet?" Caroline asked, sipping her coffee shake.

Silas tapped his phone repeatedly so hard that Caroline was afraid he was going to break it.

"No, I think she's in a mood because I sent her two of them sexts!"

Caroline clapped a hand over his mouth in horror. "Ssh! You mean _texts_ , you moron!" Caroline hissed, smiling innocently at people walking past, giving them strange looks.

Silas just looked lost. "What's the difference?"

"Oh my God! We are so not having this discussion right now." Caroline muttered.

"Let's go in the-oh my God, look it worked! They're in the Grill! The plan worked!" She exclaimed, heading towards the window, where inside a blissfully unaware Stefan and Katherine were fortunetly not ripping each other's head's off. Well, at the moment.

"Huh, we actually did it." Silas said in shock, wandering over to Caroline. "Yes! We-we can be a match-making service!" He cheered, peering through his binoculars at the two. "High five, bestie!" Silas and Caroline clapped hands together excitedly.

"Wow, I really thought this would fail. Maybe you didn't text after all." Caroline smirked, pressing her hands against the glass, leaning forward. Silas nodded.

"Yeah, about that, just out of interest, how do you use autocorrect?"

**«X»**

"Wow, so, the first dates we've had that are actually normal, busted." Stefan laughed.

Katherine giggled, feeling slightly more relaxed. "Huh, just typical. Actual human dates, something normal turns out weird." Her smile froze as a horrifying theory formed in her mind. When she said it like that...

"Wait, don't you think it's a bit strange that my date Silas set up, and yours arranged by Caroline didn't even show up? Both on the same night? And we were supposed to meet in the same place?"

"What, you don't think that was intentional, do you?" Stefan asked. "I mean, Caroline and Silas working together? They'd kill each other."

She laughed. "Both neurotic, impulsive, controlling...I dunno, it could go both ways..." Stefan smiled, and said something back, but Katherine was all of a sudden preoccupied with something in the window, the dark shape watching her.

"Wait, _what_ is that?"

**«X»**

"Ooh, ooh!" Silas tugged on Caroline's arm. She whipped back around from talking to her amused mother, binoculars now in hand.

"What?"

"Staferine is happening!" Silas squealed excitedly.

"It's _Steferine_!" Caroline hissed, looking back over at him incredulously, but grinned manically when she saw the two chatting, Katherine actually smiling at him, apparently enjoying a civil conversation.

"Aaaw, just look at them, they're falling in love all over again." Caroline gushed. "We're geniuses!"

"Yeah, they're actually getting along! On purpose!" Silas grinned.

"They're never gonna figure it out! I told you so!"

**«X»**

"Oh my God," Katherine said, leaning forward. Her eyes weren't deceiving her, there was something there, behind the window. Two silhouettes were watching them through the window, a weird pole thing attached to one of their eyes. In fact, that person looked a lot like...

Her jaw dropped, and she tugged on Stefan's arm. "Is that _Silas_? And Caroline?" She asked Stefan, pointing at the window. He turned around. "What's he doing with those binoculars?" Stefan muttered, looking as equally shocked as Katherine, standing up and approaching the door, Katherine on his heels.

Yes, this night was definitely going to end badly.

And yes, she was definetely going to kill Silas.

**«X»**

"Aah," Silas muttered nervously as Katherine frowned at him. Her mouth suddenly opened in realisation and indignation, and she tugged Stefan's arm and pointed at them.

"Um, they're looking at us, we've been spotted! Oh, Caroline, they look really mad, I think they've figured it out, oh dear, our position's been breached, what's the code word-um, Caroline, abort, _abort_ mission Steferine! We've been busted, I repeat-Caroline?"

But Caroline was already legging it, pushing through the crowd, running past the Grill, leaving him in the dust and shrieking at the top of her lungs. "Every woman for themselves! Run!"

"You ditcher!" She heard Silas yell, outraged, before taking off after her, as Stefan and Katherine rose from the table, heading towards them. "Wait, run where?" He shouted after her.

"New Orleans!"


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I'm doing another one-shot that's based on one of Lynyrd Lionheart's stories; Odds and Ends, which is absolutely amazing! s/9749733/1/
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own tvd, it belongs to Julie Plec and L.J Smith, I am using their characters for my own story. No copyright infringement is intended.

Men sucked.

Especially vampires.

Which was why Katherine was alone. Again. Stefan had left her with an amazing one-night stand, then started off some spiel about how he couldn't forgive her for the last hundred and forty-five years, and completely shattered her heart in the process, so now instead of happily playing 'girlfriend', she was drowning her sorrows in the Grill, with Matt happily supplying her with alcohol, and she couldn't stop replaying that night in her head. He'd riled her up, and she just couldn't unwind from it. At all.

Elena's high-pitched giggles weren't helping. Katherine glanced at her shadow, flirting with Damon, an uncomfortable Stefan off to the side playing pool with Caroline. Ugh. She didn't need Stefan anyway. She didn't. There. Done. Over. That simple, right?

Wrong. Because Katherine couldn't help but feel that the more she tried to convince herself that she didn't love Stefan, the more obsessed with him she became.

His love-sick gaze at Elena only made Katherine want to throw up all her alcohol, which was a lot, and she couldn't stand watching him pine over another woman that should have been her. Could have been her, if she'd played her cards right. Elena was her replica, and Stefan fell for her because he'd fallen for Katherine. It made her blood boil, and if she'd still been a vampire, Elena's head would no longer be on her shoulders.

But instead of wasting energy on wishing for something she could no longer be, Katherine threw a ten dollar bill onto the bar for Matt's...hospitality, and somehow managed to stumble drunkenly out the door without breaking her heels. Lucky the Boarding House was within walking distance, because it would be getting a lot of drunk trashing tonight, particularly the bedrooms.

But when she stormed through the door, grumbling and muttering about Stefan (the evil snake), intent on drinking Damon's bourbon and invading his privacy, the last person she expected to see sitting on the living room couch was Silas.

"Drunk? Without me?" She could hear the smirk in his voice even though he wasn't facing her, and how he knew who she was was a complete mystery to Katherine in her drunken stupor.

"What, are you, doing here?" She slowly slurred out her sentence.

"So a guy can't make himself home in his descendant's mansion?" Silas turned around this time and stood up, mocking and amused. No, she did not like him. She didn't like Salvatores in general.

"Nooo! I mean here," Katherine gestured wildly with her hands trying to encompass being alive, but really was just making wide circles in the air. "You know."

He raised an eyebrow. "No, I don't know."

"Whole and alive!" Katherine exclaimed, throwing her arms out wide. "Should be...finding peace with...Amara, the prat in pink! After you drained me of my blood so you could off yourself. Sound familiar?" She tripped and stumbled past him, and climbed over the sofa, rolling into it and laying there. She never wanted to get up again. "Idiot." She slurred to herself, curling up.She heard him laugh, but it sounded pained to her ears.

"She killed herself. She left me." His voice shook on the last word, and he looked as though he were about to fall apart as Katherine scrutinised him.

"Well, all that doppelgänger prophecy nons-nonsense was crap anyway. Look at Stefan, still swooning over Elena, the brother breaker." She said bitterly. She had no idea why she was telling him all this, but it was spilling out of it's own accord.

"Aah, I see we're no longer talking about me. Problem in paradise, honey?" Silas sneered, and Katherine barely managed to cover her surprise. He was so mean. Not like Stefan at all, and it kind of got her on a high alert; maybe she needed that. Mean Stefan was someone she rarely got to see, and he was the only version she could save from himself.

The only version just like her.

"Yes! Stefan let me believe that we still had something, then he memorised something out of a textbook about how he could never forgive me, how it was," she lowered her voice, trying to imitate Stefan. "'A moment of weakness.'"

"Oh. So he dumped you and ran, did he? Can't say I see why."

Katherine squinted at him. That was the only time Silas had ever given her a compliment. Too bad it reminded her of Stefan, all over again. "He dumped me with amazing memories that cannot be erased! And, I swear, whenever he says I hate you, or he'd say my name in that heavy, sarcastic tone, which is a lot, it really just makes me want to jump his bones! Uuurgh!" She flopped face-down back onto the sofa, not eager to refresh those particular memories. "

Oh, I had that. With Amara." He muttered wistfully. "She did _not_ like me when we first met."

"Sounds like Elena and Damon." Katherine huffed out moodily. He laughed harshly, and Katherine felt the sofa dip slightly as he sat down in front of her legs. "I don't think anyone's like _them_."

Katherine snorted, sitting up and moving her legs, tucking them towards her. "Nope. Stefan was much better than Damon ever was, so no-one in their right mind would have chosen Damon. He had this way of making me feel as though I'd flown to the moon, and like I was floating on cotton candy. He made me almost black out, I swear, that's how good the sex was." She rambled on, pouring herself a glass of Damon's bourbon. "You know what I mean?"

Silas smirked, leaning forward, and taking the bottle away. "Oh yes, Amara had her ways. Her hair was always straight, and she wore it in braids down her back, and I used to love watching it billow around her whenever she was laying down, whenever we were together, knowing only I got to see her that way...that always made me want her so much more. More than I should have." He took a long swig from the bottle, looking at her with longing in his eyes for the girl she could have been.

And if Katherine squinted in her alcohol induced sight, he was definetly handsome, and quirky, and sexy, and...Stefan. A Stefan she could have. So in her drunk, unrational brain, she decided to spontaneously be bold. In her lust for Stefan, her greed was getting out of hand, so she would settle for what she could get.

"So if I just straighten my hair..." She hinted cheekily, pulling a strand of her hair out until it was flat. "Would it make you want me?" He merely smirked, and she instantly knew he knew what she meant. And the greedy glint in his eyes suggested that he'd like nothing more than that.

"That depends. If I were to call you _Katherine_ in that 'heavy, sarcastic tone', would you want me?" He asked cheekily.

Yes. In that moment, she did. And she would have him, and he would have her, and it would be sweet for them both.

"Shall we?" She smirked, standing up and motioning towards Damon's bedroom, where Elena's hair straighteners most likely recided. He politely held out a hand to her, the old-fashioned way.

She took it, winding her fingers through his; she had always been one for danger and excitement, and he smiled back at her.

"We shall."

**~X~**

Tongues clashed together in tangled desperation, teeth mashed wildly in hot bursts of ecstasy, as the two stumbled onto the bed in a desperate tangle of limbs. The shoes came off. Then the shirts were next, (or rather, Katherine completely ripped Silas' cleanly in half, whilst he burst all her buttons at the seams in a heated, impulsive passion) as she sloppily planted kisses all over his neck and face and ran her hands all over his chest in a silent worship, as he fiddled not-so- expertly with her bra.

"I've got it...it's here, somewhere." Silas mumbled between kisses as he fumbled with the clasp, one hand still buried in her now hay-straight hair. "There you go." He finally managed to twist it off and throw the bra to the other side of the room, but not before openly raking his eyes appreciatively over the naked half of her body, that strangely made her feel complimented, rather than disgusted, based on the almost worshipful way he was doing so. But everything she had been thinking about floated straight out her mind as he gently ran his fingers over her chest, skimming her nipples, and she arched into him, wanting more, and he kissed her again, pressing her into the welcoming softness of the mattress on her bare back. She responded in kind, winding her fingers into his hair, whilst pulling off his belt, but abruptly broke away from him as he started fumbling for her trousers, some little reminder that she was human, and could now very easily be impregnated, flashing in her alcohol soaked mind.

"Silas! Wait, do you um-" she hesitated in embarrassment. "Do you have-"

In answer, he reached for his pocket, and she saw the flash of a small, metallic packet in between his two fingers, and she breathed out in relief.

"Thank God."

"Thanks, I'm not that unexperianced with the twenty-first century you know." He tore the wrapper off with his teeth as he unbuttoned her trousers and tugged them down, and she was too busy thinking how sexy that was, that she barely even realised what he had done until she felt the cool air rush at her bare legs.

She couldn't help but remember every little detail after that. There was something about him that not just hung her over the edge, but then pushed her completely off it. It was a wonderful new sensation she had never experienced before, which was why she didn't mind, not one bit when Amara's name was the last word tumbling off his lips before his world came gleefully crashing down around him.

After all, looking deep enough into his eyes, she wasn't exactly screaming his name either.

**~X~**

She came home very early the next morning, still half-drunk with a splitting headache and with the heel of her shoe broken off, disorientated, yet satiated.

But unfortunately, Nadia knew the walk of shame when she saw it.

"Who were you with? Why didn't you call me back?" She demanded.

"Relax, Nadia. You're not my mother. I'm yours." Katherine beamed drunkenly at her daughter, before tottering up the stairs. "It really wasn't my fault. Silas, really. He kept me up all night after I'd swallowed an entire bottle of bourbon, and who was I to say no to a little partying before bedtime?"

"Silas?" Nadia was incredulous, and Katherine knew she had to get away before Nadia ripped her to shreds, and locked herself in her room.

"The man who sucked all your blood out of your system to cure himself, who tried to get me to shoot myself, and who threw his doppelgänger into a safe at the bottom of a quarry. You _slept_ with him?" Nadia sounded incredulous.

"Katherine!" She rapped loudly on the door, giving Katherine even more of a hangover than before, making her feel as though drums were rattling and dancing around inside her skull. She placed a pillow over her head to drown out the noise, knowing Nadia wouldn't break down the door-it was extremely difficult to replace, and silently gave a half-prayer to Elena for giving her the cure that dulled her hearing so.

Eventually, her daughter gave up and stopped knocking with a heavy sigh. "I hope you know what you're doing, Katherine."

But when hadn't she? She was always one step ahead. Her and Silas' relationship was constructed purely out of the stagnant reason of replacements to distract one another, and if there was anything Katherine was good at, it was controlling men, and having them, and her own feelings, right where she wanted them.

Hopefully as a human that hadn't changed, especially now that she had made a deal with the Devil himself.

**~X~**

One month.

She'd been sleeping with Silas for one month, and suddenly, everyone knew. It was everyone's concern. She didn't know why, after all this time, how they suddenly knew Of course, she had kind of been hoping that Stefan had been paying an unhealthy interest to the topic, but he really hadn't looked at all that bothered.

Caroline, however, seemed to be obsessed with it, and for some reason, that in turn made Elena equally curious about her...dalliances.

"So, Silas?" Caroline asked, disdain in her voice. Katherine snapped out of her doppelgänger daydream and irritably sighed.

"Yes, not that it's any of your business." She said looking at Caroline, who had a gossipy gleam in her eye not unlike the one Katherine would have had when she was a girl, with equal disdain. "And don't worry, Elena," she glanced at the brunette, "I won't be taking up residence with Stefan anytime soon, so you needn't be bothered in my affairs. After all, what would you do if the doppelgänger prophecy was proven wrong, and you no longer had Stefan to yourself, whilst in the arms of his brother?"

Elena growled irritably, and stepped towards her, fangs out, but then seemed to remember who exactly it _was_ that Katherine was sleeping with, and stopped in her tracks, instead deciding to speak the cutting words she'd wanted to use in violent actions. "He's a monster. He's going to destroy you, you know. He destroys everything."

Katherine just smirked, knowing it would rile Elena up even more. "It's nice to know you all care. Even if you're all deluded hypocrites."

Caroline sighed, and sat down next to her. "We worked together, we were frenemies for a while, right? So I'm just going to say, as a frenemy, that Silas is the person who tried to kill you! He sucked your blood out of your system to be cured, and I heard you shot him at one point. For any relationship, don't you think that's a rocky foundation to build upon?"

Katherine sneered at her. Caroline admittingly, was alright, but she didn't need love advice from a baby vampire about someone she wasn't even in love with. "Thanks for the concern, Care bear, but there is no relationship. Just...stress release." And it was. Sleeping with Silas had done wonders for Katherine in the past two weeks, and had calmed her down considerably. She didn't really think of Stefan without jumping his bones anymore, and she could honestly say that for the first time in a long time, she felt free.

Caroline raised her eyebrows, looking at Katherine with a rather shallow expression that she hadn't used in a long time. "That's not going to end well."

"Nothing ever does in Mystic Falls. If you're 'worried' about me getting rejected, don't bother, I've grown accustomed to it." Katherine replied bitingly, standing up from the table, preparing to leave, but before she did, she turned back to Elena, feeling the need to defend Silas for some reason.

"Oh, and, unlike Damon, Silas isn't a monster. Granted, he's a dick, but he hasn't actually tried to ruin me or my family for personal reasons." With the final word, and the satisfaction at the look on Elena's face, Katherine spun around and marched proudly out of the Grill, head higher than it had been in a long time.

It was only then that it occurred to her that it had been Silas she had been daydreaming about, not Stefan.

For some reason, it felt terrifyingly right.

**~X~**

"Katerina." A smirk, and a flick of her hair, and that was all it took to lift her spirits.

She reluctantly smiled, although how he managed to do that with a name that represented all things bad in her human life, she didn't know.

"Don't call me that. Stefan said my name with such hatred, and my other name is someone I've completely forgotten how to be."

Silas raised his eyebrows. "Ookay then, dare I ask where you're going on a fine day like this without me, then Kitty-Kat?" He smirked smugly at the new nickname as his eyes not-so-innocently flitted down to her chest, where her low-cut top ended, and she rolled her eyes. Typical. Apparently it didn't matter how old men were, most of them still couldn't resist checking women out.

"Watch it, perv." She crossed her arms over her chest, but couldn't help smiling at him. "And, to answer your question, I need to go shopping. Unfortunately, I no longer live on blood bags, instead, now I live off of a payroll and pretty much my own daughter. And I didn't think men normally liked shopping, so..."

"Well, I wouldn't be a gentleman if I didn't help you out with your shopping now, would I?" Silas said innocently, holding out his arm for her to take. She rolled her eyes again at his childish acts, but tucked her arm into his anyway.

She ended up having fun. The best time she'd had in a long time. She taught Silas about aisles and trolleys, freezers and shelves, (turned out, he'd never actually set foot inside a supermarket before) and it helped her see that being human wasn't actually all that bad.

No regrets.

"That was fun." Silas laughed loudly, ignoring the rude glare a cashier shot him, and throwing an arm around her shoulders. He'd been very over-excited, tossing in food from every aisle in the trolley, and she'd tried to be annoyed, but somehow ended up having the most fun she'd had in a long time without taking her clothes off.

"So, come on, you wanna go invade the Boarding House and watch _10 Things I Hate About You_?" He asked, smirking at him secretively.

She smiled up at him. "I never would have pegged you for a Heath Ledger fan."

Silas shrugged. "It just happened to be on the TV one time, and I ended up watching it. He and Julia Stiles had good chemistry. So, what do you say?"

She looked up at him, and all of a sudden, her heart literally _skipped a beat_ as he grinned at her, and she subconsciously remembered agreeing, trying to shove the feeling away, before he steered her off, shopping in hand, still completely steeped in shock at the spark that was awakening inside of her.

It shouldn't have been like that, Katherine knew, but she fell into it as though in a daze, and it felt too natural to stop.

And it was only afterwards, as she lay, ridiculously happy and worn-out in his arms, that she realised with a horrible shock, that he hadn't cried out for Amara's name against her hair.

Her perfectly, naturally _wavy_ hair.

Worse than that, she hadn't called him, or seen Stefan at all in his eyes when she looked at him today. Or yesterday, or last week, and she couldn't quite remember when that had happened.

So, Katherine Pierce did what she always did, in a bid to stop herself getting hurt, when her life was flying out of control.

She ran.

**~X~**

He found her after a week of hiding out in Caroline's dorm room.

"Where've you been? In case you hadn't noticed, I practically blew up your phone calling you."

"I noticed." She replied coolly, flipping the page of her magazine and feigning interest in it, because annoyingly, she couldn't help but pay attention to him, and she didn't want him to know that.

"Then why are you avoiding me?"

"I'm not avoiding you. Didn't you know? Being a mother to Nadia and a friend to Caroline is extremely hard work." Silas sighed, and then walked over to her and sat opposite her.

"We were having fun. What's wrong with that?"

Katherine flipped her magazine shut. "The problem, Silas, is that we were supposed to be replacements. That's it. Replacements for the people we loved, but couldn't have. Just carbon-copies. And that was fine, it was great that way. But-"

"Things changed." He interrupted her. Katherine gaped at him in surprise, and he shrugged. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice? When you stopped calling me him, and I stopped seeing Amara in your eyes? That's natural. People's relationships evolve, Katherine. We change when we're together, we become better people, as long as we have emotions, we could never have had a proper functioning relationship in the way we did for long, it's part of being human. Why won't you let that happen with us?"

"Because nothing like that ever works out for me! Stefan, Elijah, Nadia's father, everyone left me whenever I got too close. You weren't meant to get too close. You weren't meant to make me laugh and feel alive again, or go shopping with me, or hold my hand when we watched movies, Silas!" Katherine snapped, exhaling heavily. He was _not_ making this easy on her. He just didn't understand.

"So it's easier to just pretend it never meant anything, and just go back to the way things were. Where I hated you for drinking all my blood, and you despised me because I shot you and was a _gag reflex_ to you. Where we didn't start behaving like a couple because I don't want an established relationship. I didn't initiate this looking for one with you."

"I know," Silas replied tautly, looking rather wooden. "I know we didn't want relationships, but I think you now do, and you're too afraid to admit it to yourself." He stood up, and she suddenly felt the urge to beg him to stay. "I also know that if you didn't have feelings for me, or didn't want to be with me then this wouldn't be a problem to begin with. I'm not the monster you all thought I was. And if you realise that, then give me a call."

And before Katherine could stop him, he was out the door, and gone. Gone before she could even work out what she wanted, how to respond to his speech that was more or less a declaration of his feelings for her as clearly as the words _I love you_.

This always happened in the movies, pretty much in _10 Things I Hate About You,_ and if there was one thing Katherine learned from movies like that, it was that it never worked out. Whatever they did, friends with benefits, one-night stands, the morale of the story was almost always about falling in love, conquering all, realising who your true soul mate is.

And God, she hated it when the movies were right.

**~X~**

Another week passed, she went back to Nadia's and she still didn't speak to Silas. Though strangely, distance really does make the heart grow fonder, and it only made her miss him more and more, despite her profanities that letting herself love him would only end badly.

Eventually, her desire to see him won through thick and thin. Time to admit, she'd fallen for him, and his purpose as a replacement toy in her life had completely gone south.

Pressing his number that she somehow knew off by heart into the keypad, she pressed her phone to her ear and listened to the phone dial, impatiently waiting for him to pick up.

"Took you long enough, Kitty-Kat." His voice, however irritatingly smug it sounded, made her breath hitch and her mouth curve upwards in an instant smile in a way Stefan never could, even if he tried.

"Pick me up tonight at six. You're going to take me out to a diner, anyplace but the Grill, and not some shabby one-star restaurant-I have standards. Then at eight, we'll go to the cinema and we'll watch Endless Love because admittingly, I'm a sap for romantic films and so are you." She said all in one breath.

He laughed. "You're telling me to pick you up for a date? Didn't we kind of skip that part?"

"Yes, we were a little...backward in our methods, but that's what made it better, and I think we've established that I'm no longer Amara, and you're not Stefan." She shrugged. Imminently, she wasn't taking no for an answer.

"Alright. See you at six then, Katherine." This time, unlike Stefan, his tone wasn't sarcastic or bitter, it was a soft lull as he rolled her name around his tongue as though it were some sort of delicious dessert, and it _really_ made her knees weak.

"Don't forget, make it worthwhile." She reminded him. "Because I'm not wearing my best dress for McDonald's."

"Only the best for you." Silas muttered.

"I'm sure I can only handle perfection." She shot back, grinning, before hanging up, and gleefully preparing for her first date in sixty seven years.

**~X~**

"Don't wait up." Katherine said to Nadia as she hurried down the stairs, grabbing her make-up bag from the side-table.

But Nadia stood up. "Where are you going? And really? Dressed like that?" Katherine sighed, and reluctantly turned back around to her daughter, fighting the urge to laugh at her protectiveness. She was so sweet, and worried, but Katherine loved her for it."I have some...unfinished business to attend to."

"Silas?"

"Silas." Katherine confirmed, heading towards the door.

"Okay." Nadia pursed her lips, clearly not impressed with that idea. Katherine pondered for a moment, hurriedly wishing for Silas to arrive, so she wouldn't have to know the answer the question now buzzing around her head. Eventually, she gave up and turned back to Nadia. "Urgh, tell me, what is it that's bothering you? Hurry up, I've got five minutes."

"Um," Nadia started, looking a little anxious. "It's just...you seem rather serious with him, you've never done that before, so I was wondering...and-uh..."

"Nadia, I've got to go in, like, two minutes. If there's something you need to say to me-" "Is Silas going to become my step-dad?"

The question completely startled Katherine. She'd never really ever thought that far ahead when it came to him. Or to anyone. She'd never loved strongly enough to consider marriage, which was why Nadia's father had proven to be such a failure when it came to marriage, and she'd had a baby out of wedlock. Was Silas someone she would finally be with forever?

A honk from a car outside jolted her from her thoughts, and indicated that her date had arrived. In a split second decision, she turned back to Nadia, and smiled.

"We'll see."


End file.
